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The discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799 breathed life into a quest long deemed impossible: the reading of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Toby Wilkinson tells the tale of the two rivals who raced to be first to crack the code

The Rosetta Stone
Published: September 27, 2022 at 3:25 pm
For more than 40 generations, no living soul was able to read an ancient Egyptian text. Even before the last-known hieroglyphic inscription was carved (in August AD 394), detailed understanding of the script had all but died out in the Nile Valley, save for a few members of the elite. As those with the specialist knowledge also dwindled, speculation took over and fanciful theories sprang up about the meaning of the mysterious signs seen adorning Egyptian monuments.

As early as the first century BC, the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus had averred that the script was “not built up from syllables to express the underlying meaning, but from the appearance of the things drawn and by their metaphorical meaning learned by heart”. In other words, it was believed hieroglyphics did not form an alphabet, nor were they phonetic (signs representing sounds). Instead, they were logograms, pictures with symbolic meaning.

This was a fundamental misconception, and deflected scholars from decipherment for the following 19 centuries. The European Enlightenment’s ablest philologists (those who study the history and development of languages) deemed the task to be impossible.

English antiquarian William Stukeley said in the early 18th century: “The characters cut on the Egyptian monuments are purely symbolical… The perfect knowledge of ’em is irrecoverable.” Five decades later, French orientalist Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy dismissed the work of deciphering the writing as “too complicated, scientifically insoluble”.

Only at the end of that century did a bold Danish scholar named Georg Zoëga suggest that some of the hieroglyphs might be phonetic after all. “When Egypt is better known to scholars,” he wrote, “it will perhaps be possible to learn to read the hieroglyphs and more intimately to understand the meaning of the Egyptian monuments.”

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Zoëga’s statement was a prescient one. A year later, in 1798, Napoleon launched his expedition to Egypt, taking a large scientific and scholarly expedition to study the ancient remains. In July 1799, his soldiers discovered the Rosetta Stone: a stela carved with a royal decree promulgated in the name of Ptolemy V in the second century BC.

The languages on the Rosetta Stone
While the decree itself was not significant, the fact that it had been inscribed in three scripts (hieroglyphics; an equally enigmatic form of Egyptian now known as demotic; and the still-understood ancient Greek) was what offered hope of finally making the unreadable Egyptian writing readable. Copies of the stone’s inscriptions circulated in Europe and cracking the code became one of the greatest intellectual challenges of the new century.

It was not long before the challenge was taken up by two brilliant minds of the age: Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion, who could not have been more different in talent or temperament.

Young was a dazzling polymath of easy, self-effacing erudition, while Champollion was a single-minded obsessive, a self-conscious and jealous intellectual. And for added piquancy, the former was English, the latter French. The scholars were destined to be bitter rivals in the decipherment race.

Thomas Young and the Rosetta Stone
Thomas Young was born in Somerset in 1773 to Quaker parents who placed a high value on learning. Showing an early aptitude for languages, it is said that by the age of two he had learned to read and by 14 had gained some proficiency in French, Italian, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Ethiopic, and a clutch of obscure ancient languages. When old enough, Young went out in search of a profession to support himself, so he trained in medicine and moved to London in 1799 to practise as a doctor. Science, however, remained his passion.

Pioneer philologist English polymath Thomas Young
Thomas Young (1773-1829), English physicist and Egyptologist. Discovered the undulatory (wave) theory of light. Managed to decipher the Rosetta Stone. (Photo by Oxford Science Archive/Print Collector/Getty Images)
In 1801, Young was appointed professor of natural philosophy at the Royal Institution and for two years gave dozens of lectures, covering virtually every aspect of science. For sheer breadth of knowledge, this has never been surpassed. With his supreme gifts as a linguist, it is not surprising that he should have become interested in the philological conundrum of the age: the decipherment of hieroglyphics. In his own words, he could not resist “an attempt to unveil the mystery, in which Egyptian literature has been involved for nearly twenty centuries”.

He began studying a copy of the Rosetta Stone inscription in 1814. It had quickly been determined that the three scripts said the same thing, if not word for word, so being able to read one inscription (the ancient Greek) would be a starting point for another (the hieroglyphics). The hieroglyphic inscription, however, was incomplete due to damage to the top of the stone, so scholars began by studying the second script (demotic). Young, blessed with an almost photographic memory, managed to discern patterns and resemblances that had escaped others, namely that the second script was closely connected with hieroglyphics, even derived from them, and that it was composed of a combination of both symbolic and phonetic signs.

Young was the first to make these ultimately correct evaluations. Also, working on the assumption that the name of a king was enclosed in a ring, or cartouche, in the hieroglyphic inscription, Young could locate every mention of “Ptolemy”, with which he was able to come up with a starting alphabet for hieroglyphics.

In 1818, Young summed up his pioneering knowledge in an article for the Encyclopaedia Britannica simply entitled “Egypt”, but he made the fateful move of publishing his landmark article anonymously. This allowed his great rival eventually to take the glory of decipherment.

Jean-François Champollion and the Rosetta Stone
Jean-François Champollion was 17 years Young’s junior. Born in 1790 in south-western France to a bookseller and his wife, he grew up surrounded by writings and displayed a precocious genius for languages.

It fell to his older brother, the similarly gifted Jacques-Joseph, essentially to raise him and support his learning. They would move to Grenoble and the young Champollion picked up half a dozen languages. Crucially, it turned out, among them was Coptic: an ancient language with an alphabet based on Greek, which he correctly surmised to be a descendant of ancient Egyptian.

An 1831 portrait Of Jean-Francois Champollion
Portrait of Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832), 1831. Found in the Collection of Musée du Louvre, Paris. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
In 1804, Champollion first came across a copy of the Rosetta Stone inscription, and was fascinated. By the time the mayor of Grenoble is reported to have asked him, in 1806, if he intended to study the fashionable natural sciences, “No, Monsieur,” was the firm reply. “I wish to devote my life to knowledge of ancient Egypt.”

Following a few years studying in Paris, Champollion, still only 19 years old, moved back to Grenoble to take up a teaching post at the local college, gaining a promotion in 1818. This brought a measure of security that allowed him to devote more time to the study of ancient Egypt. That same year in England, Young was penning his seminal article for the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Then, just three years later, Champollion’s revolutionary politics cost him his good name. Fired from the college and ejected from Grenoble, he lodged with his brother. With nothing else to occupy himself, and the benefit of Jacques-Joseph’s extensive library, he threw himself wholeheartedly and with a single-minded focus into the subject that had occupied his mind for years: deciphering the Egyptian script.

Based on his studies of the Rosetta Stone, Champollion made some progress, but was still unable to crack the code entirely. Then a second major piece of the puzzle arrived in the form of an obelisk discovered at Philae and removed from Egypt by a British collector, William John Bankes, to decorate the grounds of his stately home in Dorset.

Lithographs of the inscription circulated in the early 1820s and, like with the Rosetta Stone, the names of rulers – Ptolemy again and Cleopatra – could be identified in cartouches. Incidentally, the lithograph that went to Young contained an error, hampering his research, while the copy that came into Champollion’s possession in January 1822 was accurate.

Certain he was making rapid progress, the Frenchman assigned phonetic values to individual hieroglyphic signs and built an alphabet of his own, which let him find the names of other rulers of Egypt on other monuments.

The final breakthrough came on Saturday 14 September 1822 after Champollion received another inscription, from the pharaonic temple at Abu Simbel. Applying all the knowledge he had laboured so long and so hard to acquire, he was able to read the royal name as that of Ramesses the Great. Encouraged, he went on to read Ptolemy’s royal epithets on the Rosetta Stone. By the end of the morning, he needed no further proof that his system was the right one.

Hieroglyphic carvings at Abu Simbel, site of two temples built by Ramesses the Great
Hieroglyphic carvings at Abu Simbel, site of two temples built by Ramesses the Great in the 13th century BC. As the script could be written in any direction, the way the human and animal figures face shows how to read an inscription (Photo by Getty Images)
He sprinted down the road to his brother’s office at the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, flinging a sheaf of papers on to the desk and exclaiming: “Je tiens mon affaire!” (“I’ve done it!”)

Overcome with emotion and exhausted by the mental effort, Champollion collapsed to the floor and had to be taken back home, where for five days he was confined to his room completely incapacitated. When he finally regained his strength, on the Thursday evening, he immediately resumed his feverish studies and wrote up his results. Just one week later, on Friday 27 September, he delivered a lecture to the Académie to announce his findings formally. By convention, his paper had to be addressed to the permanent secretary, so was given the title Lettre à M. Dacier (“Letter to Mr Dacier”).

The rivalry of Young and Champollion
By extraordinary coincidence, in attendance at that historic talk was Thomas Young, who happened to be in Paris. Moreover, he was invited to sit next to Champollion while he read out his discoveries.

In a letter written two days later, Young acknowledged his rival’s achievement: “Mr Champollion, junior… has lately been making some steps in Egyptian literature, which really appear to be gigantic. It may be said that he found the key in England which has opened the gate for him… but if he did borrow an English key, the lock was so dreadfully rusty, that no common arm would have had strength enough to turn it.”

This outward magnanimity concealed a deeper hurt at the belief Champollion had failed to acknowledge Young’s contributions to decipherment. Quietly determined to set the record straight he published his own work within a few months, this time under his own name. It was pointedly entitled An Account of Some Recent Discoveries in Hieroglyphical Literature and Egyptian Antiquities, Including the Author’s Original Alphabet, as Extended by Mr Champollion.

The Frenchman was not about to take such a claim lightly. In an angry letter to Young, he retorted: “I shall never consent to recognise any other original alphabet than my own… and the unanimous opinion of scholars on this point will be more and more confirmed by the public examination of any other claim.”

Indeed, Champollion was as adept at self-promotion as Young was self-effacing. Buoyed by public recognition, he continued working and came to a second, equally vital realisation: his system could be applied to texts as well as names, using the Coptic he had utterly immersed himself in as a guide. This marked the real moment at which ancient Egyptian once again became a readable language. The race had been won.

Hieroglyphs in the notebook of Jean-Francois Champollion
Pages of Jean-François Champollion’s notebook filled with facsimiles of hieroglyphic inscriptions. The Frenchman dedicated his life to learning the meaning of the symbols that had baffled scholars for centuries (Photo by Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images)
Champollion revealed the full extent of his findings in his magnum opus, Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens Egyptiens (Summary of the hieroglyphic system of the ancient Egyptians). Published in 1824, it summed up the character of ancient Egyptian: “Hieroglyphic writing is a complex system, a script at once figurative, symbolic, and phonetic, in the same text, in the same sentence, and, I might almost say, in the same word.” His reputation secure, he even felt able to acknowledge, grudgingly, Young’s work with the comment, “I recognise that he was the first to publish some correct ideas about the ancient writings of Egypt.”

Young, for his part, seemed to forgive Champollion for any slights, later telling a friend that his rival had “shown me far more attention than I ever showed or could show, to any living being”. Privately, Champollion was far less magnanimous, writing to his brother: “The Brit can do whatever he wants – it will remain ours: and all of old England will learn from young France how to spell hieroglyphs using an entirely different method.”

In the end, despite their radically different characters and temperaments, both made essential contributions to decipherment. Young developed the conceptual framework and recognised the hybrid nature of demotic and its connection with hieroglyphics. Had he stuck at the task and not been distracted by his numerous other scientific interests, he may well have cracked the code himself.

Instead, it took Champollion’s linguistic abilities and focus. His Lettre à M. Dacier announced to the world that the secrets of the hieroglyphics had been discovered and ancient Egyptian texts could be read.

It remains one of the greatest feats of philology. By lifting the civilisation of the pharaohs out of the shadows of mythology and into the light of history, it marked the birth of Egyptology and allowed the ancient Egyptians to speak, once again, in their own voice.

Toby Wilkinson is an Egyptologist and author. His books include A World Beneath the Sands: Adventurers and Archaeologists in the Golden Age of Egyptology (Picador, 2020)

This content first appeared in the October issue of BBC History Magazine

Via Charles Tiayon

Vice President and Principal Analyst Melody Brue gives her analysis of Microsoft's new generative AI search using ChatGPT in its Bing search engine.

Via Charles Tiayon

Why do learning disabilities continue to be called learning disabilities instead of learning differences? Why are they not simply considered part of the landscape of neurodiversity? Thomas Armstrong, executive director of the American Institute for Learning and Human Development, writes: The number of categories of illnesses listed by the American Psychiatric Association has tripled in the past fifty years. With so many people affected by our growing “culture of disabilities,” it no longer makes sense to hold on to the deficit-ridden idea of neuropsychological illness.1 The labels are maintained in large part because many laws, regulations, policies, and practices lag behind current research, and disability diagnoses are still required to support basic student rights. For example, a “disability” is required for students to access accommodations on standardized testing, produced by largely privately owned organizations (College Board,2 ACT). The term “disability” comes from federal legislation that allows for rights, under the law, to help even out the playing field for those with diagnosed disabilities, including learning disabilities. Additionally, funding for medical and educational resources has muddied the waters of terminology. Diagnoses are required for insurance to cover medical costs, and labels are needed to support funding for educational resources. While the clinical and federal references for diagnoses have unique functions, the ICD-10, DSM-V, IDEA, Section 504 of the ADA,3 and the education code standardize the terminology to some extent and limit the semantics required of those advocating for students. As educators, we find it challenging to switch perspectives, and simultaneously adopt a new vocabulary, to reinforce the setting in which the student needs support: classroom, tutorial, doctor’s office, standardized test board. The task can translate into navigating a series of hoops that can seem arbitrary and entirely separate from a deeper understanding of the learner. While the philosophical shift in terminology from “disability” to “difference” or “style” is more informed and politically correct, it is the political system that holds one to the term “disability” in order to access legal rights for those who need individualized support and accommodations. The tipping point will come when a substantial cohort of educators and parents understands differences, deficits, and diversity. A wider perspective allows people to address learning differences in an accepting and proactive manner. Acceptance and early intervention ensure that learning variations never reach the level of deficit that creates the discrepancy model on which disability determination has historically been based. While a growing number of people will become more understanding and accepting of the neurodiversity of students, society’s medical and educational institutions will still be significantly influenced by financial and legislative terminology. Semantics is getting in the way of a more humane approach to learning. Differentiation … Because It’s Just Good Teaching Differentiated instruction that meets individual student needs should be the norm in teaching, yet this requires additional training, materials, and coaching to support teachers’ ability to understand, prepare for, and accommodate all learners. Teachers are asked to differentiate for each learner for each subject and at various times of the day, with a host of variables that will impact each individual’s experience. Differentiation is essential in the way a teacher designs and implements instruction on a daily basis with their students. If, therefore, differentiation is simply “good teaching,” why are we subjecting learners (and ourselves) to a host of tests, labels, and logistics to determine how a learner functions outside the norm? A differentiated approach considers all learners as outside the norm. For teaching to adapt to the modern framework of a growth mindset, there must be a collective rejection of the semantics of educational labels. Instead, educators must gather accurate data at regular intervals in a student’s educational experience and then use this formative data to adjust instructional approaches and materials. School communities must work together to support the needs of all learners. Teachers must assess in the true meaning of the word assess — to sit beside — rather than continue to test mastery of static content through measurement tools that necessitate accommodations for at least 20 percent of the population. Schools must focus on a Universal Design for Learning4 to meet the unique needs of all students, knowing that every student benefits from an individualized approach to instruction. The term “accommodations” would no longer be necessary if accessibility features, such as audio books, voice dictation, calculators, and untimed tests, were available to support a more mindful approach to education. And yet, accessibility features alone are not enough. Clinically researched screening tools, such as the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP), can be used to modify curriculum and instruction to meet students’ needs at the early elementary level; and multisensory teaching methods and materials, many of which were originally designed for students with diagnosed learning disabilities, can be used to benefit all students, regardless of age or skill set. Reading, for example is a not a natural skill developmentally. Reading is learned through explicit instruction and sufficient practice. Deficits in phonological awareness are viewed as the hallmark of reading disabilities. Phonological awareness is, however, the most responsive to intervention of the phonological processing areas.5 When teachers have the support to better understand how to guide this skill, fewer students struggle. Implementing a Paradigm Shift Once we have acknowledged that students process information in a variety of ways, it is critical to present new learning in different formats to ensure educational equity. When writing lesson plans, teachers who are adept at differentiating research and employing multiple resources and multiple perspectives on the same topic,6 have a whole host of teaching techniques to use, such as videos, pictures, interactive websites, music, poetry, art, guided visualization, concrete manipulatives, small-motor and large-motor activities, maker’s projects, read-alouds, self-reflective writing, independent reading, analytic writing, small-group and large-group discussion prompts, oral presentations, and lectures. This resource of tools gives teachers quick access to many forms of instructional input and the flexibility to adjust to students’ interests, experience, background knowledge, and learning needs. Most important, when teachers present a variety of teaching strategies, they are also modeling the fact that there are many forms of acceptable output. At Stevenson School in Carmel, California, we operate from the position that all learners deserve a seat at the table and also deserve to be fed according to their individual dietary needs. Instead of thinking of the developmental learning spectrum from high to low, we think of it as propensities in different modes of learning. Equity is about getting what you need, not getting the same as everyone else. This is as true for the student-genius with debilitating social-emotional glitches as it is for the dyslexic/ADHD child with academic learning challenges. Within this operating philosophy, we look at equity from a different point of view and provide a broad range of options. For example, in grade 6, we are learning about the early 1800s, and the textbook is dense and somewhat dry. We have provided these students with key vocabulary, videos, and photographs of the same material in advance so that when they encounter the textbook, they have a context for the big picture. We then guide the students through the process of reading dense nonfiction text by projecting the text on a large screen and having the teacher model annotation skills with a think-aloud strategy. The group is then ready to reflect in their independent writing journals on the topic covered. At this point, we have exposed the students to the material visually, verbally, and, now, intrapersonally. The time allows for synthesis of complex ideas and multiple input modalities to provide access to all learners. Discussion follows, which draws in the interpersonal learners and gives students practice with concise, articulate oral presentation. In this class, the sixth-grade students are asked to write their own graphic novels. They choose a topic relevant to the early 1800s and will either draw the panels themselves or use Google Slides or Storyboard That to create the final draft. At present, differentiation often pushes teachers to action outside their comfort zone in classroom preparation, classroom instruction, and assessment of knowledge. If we simplify the notion of learning and teaching to the common-sense fundamentals of communication (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), teachers often make natural and intuitive connections in how and why to differentiate. With an additional understanding of the limitations of attention and memory, we can strive to expand our teaching and assessing of student knowledge. Listening and speaking are not just in the realm of the speech therapist or the foreign language teacher; reading and writing are not just the domain of the English teacher. Educators across all content areas benefit from an understanding of the language continuum so that instruction, especially of new material, is couched in a context that will afford learners time for input, then processing, then output. Learning requires attention and engagement, and for students with biologically based ADHD, there is nothing teachers can do to replace the neurotransmitters necessary for attention.7 They can, however, respect the limitations of attention, increase movement and hands-on learning, break information into manageable units, and provide embedded strategy training. The bold shift to comprehensively develop faculty who are competent in differentiated instruction, classroom management, and assessment has a more significant impact on positive academic and emotional outcomes for students than any other curricular initiative.8 The essential factors supporting the implementation of this paradigm shift are a shared intention of prioritization, inspiration, frequent observation, targeted professional development, planning time, access to materials, ongoing support, consultation, and coaching. Creative allocation of resources, organization, and conscientious follow-through allow schools to accomplish their desired goals. Frequent observation of instruction and regular feedback are tangible measures that afford educational leaders a proactive role in helping teachers reach their students. At high-performing schools, “Leaders typically observe each teacher eight times a year — three more times than leaders at other schools” and provide verbal or written feedback after almost every observation.9 Faculty benefit from the same individualized accountability as their students. When administrators and colleagues observe day-to-day instruction, everyone is better informed to discuss, critique, and examine the ways in which teaching practices can be improved. Review of classroom videos adds an additional level of self-reflection and allows educators to play an integral role in their own professional growth. As the poet Rabindranath Tagore said, “A teacher can never truly teach unless he is still learning himself.” It is essential that the shared vision is clear — that everyone is on board and feels safe to explore new ideas. Targeted professional development reflects a commitment to strengthen instruction at the individual teacher level. An awareness of what each teacher needs to be more effective in his or her practice unfolds through observation and a collegial coaching relationship.10 A school culture of teamwork, motivation, expertise, and creative thinking engages teachers to be innovative educators.11 Planning time is essential to implement innovative ideas. Administrators must pay attention to the flow of the daily schedule, the yearly calendar, and the timing of extra demands. While flexibility is key to a dynamic team, there is never enough time for everything. Careful consideration is important in supporting collaboration, in encouraging project-based learning initiatives, and in protecting teachers from a sense of being overwhelmed. Access to materials needed to implement innovative ideas across the curriculum must be provided. While supplies do not necessarily need to be expensive, materials should be budgeted into the plan and be available, depending on the financial limitations of an institution, along with the considerable time it takes resourceful teachers to create their own materials. Ongoing support, consultation, and coaching are necessary to strengthen the instructional culture. Regular meetings with a mentor — an administrator, specialist, or colleague — are vital to fully exploring the potential of learning theories and instructional practices. If coaching is embedded in the culture, then, just as with observation, the formality falls away to reveal an empowering relationship that can be the springboard for passionate, purposeful teaching. More than ever before, 21st century schools need exceptional teachers — teachers who love to teach learners; who are committed to finding ways to access their students individually and as a group; and who are educated, trained, and treated as professionals. Teaching is a dynamic profession, requiring responsiveness to an immeasurable set of real and perceived limitations and strengths. With patience, acceptance, information, and a sustainable framework of support, educators can create safe and supportive learning environments that rise above the political semantics of learning differences and reframe neurodiversity in terms of equity and empathy. Notes 1. Thomas Armstrong, Neurodiversity: Discovering the Extraordinary Gifts of Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Brain Differences (Cambridge, MA: De Capo Press, 2010). 2. The College Board’s SAT test originates from an adaptation of the Army Alpha — the first mass-administered IQ test, which was made more difficult for use as a college admissions test. (Frontline, “A Brief History of the SAT,” PBS Online; online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/where/history.html.) 3. ICD-10 is the 10th revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD), a medical classification list issued by the World Health Organization (WHO); DSM-V is the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a classification and diagnostic tool published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA); IDEA is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), a four-part piece of American legislation that ensures that students with a disability are provided with free appropriate public education (FAPE) that is tailored to their individual needs; Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is federal legislation that guarantees certain rights to people with disabilities. It was the first U.S. federal civil rights protection for people with disabilities; it helped pave the way for the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). 4. An education framework based on research in the learning sciences. 5. Richard K. Wagner, Joseph K. Torgesen, and Carol Rashotte, Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP) (Austin, TX: PRO-ED, 1999); Richard K. Wagner, Joseph K. Torgesen, and Carol Rashotte, “Development of Reading-Related Phonological Processing Abilities: New Evidence of Bidirectional Causality From a Latent Variable Longitudinal Study,” Developmental Psychology 30, no. 1 (1994): 73-87; Richard K. Wagner and Joseph K. Torgesen, “The Nature of Phonological Processing and Its Causal Role in the Acquisition of Reading Skills. Psychological Bulletin 101, no. 2 (1987): 192-212. 6. A good example of curating is Critical Explorers (www.criticalexplorers.org), which provides free online curricular resources. 7. JoAnn Deak, “An Evening With Dr. JoAnn Deak,” presentation to Stevenson School, August 24, 2015, Pebble Beach, CA. 8. In five years of steady growth, student test scores at Stevenson School increased from below grade level performance in reading and math to award-winning standings in the top 15 percent in the state (nationalblueribbonschools.ed.gov/awardwinners/). 9. The New Teacher Project, 2012 10. Stephen D. Brookfield, The Skillful Teacher: On Teaching, Trust, and Responsiveness in the Classroom (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2015). 11. Eleanor Duckworth, “Confusion, Play and Postponing Certainty,” Harvard Gazette, February 16, 2012; online at http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/02/confusion-play-and-postponing-certainty-eleanor-duckworth-harvard-thinks-big/2012. For Further Reading Barquero, Laura, Nicole Davis, and Laurie E. Cutting, “Neuroimaging of Reading Intervention: A Systematic Review and Activation Likelihood Estimate Meta-Analysis.” PLoS One 9, no. 11 (2014). Dweck, Carol. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. New York: Random House: 2006. Eide, Brock I., and Fernette L. Eide. The Dyslexic Advantage: Unlocking the Hidden Potential of the Dyslexic Brain. New York: Penguin, 2012.

Via Lawton Rogers

The discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799 breathed life into a quest long deemed impossible: the reading of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Toby Wilkinson tells the tale of the two rivals who raced to be first to crack the code

The Rosetta Stone
Published: September 27, 2022 at 3:25 pm
For more than 40 generations, no living soul was able to read an ancient Egyptian text. Even before the last-known hieroglyphic inscription was carved (in August AD 394), detailed understanding of the script had all but died out in the Nile Valley, save for a few members of the elite. As those with the specialist knowledge also dwindled, speculation took over and fanciful theories sprang up about the meaning of the mysterious signs seen adorning Egyptian monuments.

As early as the first century BC, the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus had averred that the script was “not built up from syllables to express the underlying meaning, but from the appearance of the things drawn and by their metaphorical meaning learned by heart”. In other words, it was believed hieroglyphics did not form an alphabet, nor were they phonetic (signs representing sounds). Instead, they were logograms, pictures with symbolic meaning.

This was a fundamental misconception, and deflected scholars from decipherment for the following 19 centuries. The European Enlightenment’s ablest philologists (those who study the history and development of languages) deemed the task to be impossible.

English antiquarian William Stukeley said in the early 18th century: “The characters cut on the Egyptian monuments are purely symbolical… The perfect knowledge of ’em is irrecoverable.” Five decades later, French orientalist Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy dismissed the work of deciphering the writing as “too complicated, scientifically insoluble”.

Only at the end of that century did a bold Danish scholar named Georg Zoëga suggest that some of the hieroglyphs might be phonetic after all. “When Egypt is better known to scholars,” he wrote, “it will perhaps be possible to learn to read the hieroglyphs and more intimately to understand the meaning of the Egyptian monuments.”

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Zoëga’s statement was a prescient one. A year later, in 1798, Napoleon launched his expedition to Egypt, taking a large scientific and scholarly expedition to study the ancient remains. In July 1799, his soldiers discovered the Rosetta Stone: a stela carved with a royal decree promulgated in the name of Ptolemy V in the second century BC.

The languages on the Rosetta Stone
While the decree itself was not significant, the fact that it had been inscribed in three scripts (hieroglyphics; an equally enigmatic form of Egyptian now known as demotic; and the still-understood ancient Greek) was what offered hope of finally making the unreadable Egyptian writing readable. Copies of the stone’s inscriptions circulated in Europe and cracking the code became one of the greatest intellectual challenges of the new century.

It was not long before the challenge was taken up by two brilliant minds of the age: Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion, who could not have been more different in talent or temperament.

Young was a dazzling polymath of easy, self-effacing erudition, while Champollion was a single-minded obsessive, a self-conscious and jealous intellectual. And for added piquancy, the former was English, the latter French. The scholars were destined to be bitter rivals in the decipherment race.

Thomas Young and the Rosetta Stone
Thomas Young was born in Somerset in 1773 to Quaker parents who placed a high value on learning. Showing an early aptitude for languages, it is said that by the age of two he had learned to read and by 14 had gained some proficiency in French, Italian, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Ethiopic, and a clutch of obscure ancient languages. When old enough, Young went out in search of a profession to support himself, so he trained in medicine and moved to London in 1799 to practise as a doctor. Science, however, remained his passion.

Pioneer philologist English polymath Thomas Young
Thomas Young (1773-1829), English physicist and Egyptologist. Discovered the undulatory (wave) theory of light. Managed to decipher the Rosetta Stone. (Photo by Oxford Science Archive/Print Collector/Getty Images)
In 1801, Young was appointed professor of natural philosophy at the Royal Institution and for two years gave dozens of lectures, covering virtually every aspect of science. For sheer breadth of knowledge, this has never been surpassed. With his supreme gifts as a linguist, it is not surprising that he should have become interested in the philological conundrum of the age: the decipherment of hieroglyphics. In his own words, he could not resist “an attempt to unveil the mystery, in which Egyptian literature has been involved for nearly twenty centuries”.

He began studying a copy of the Rosetta Stone inscription in 1814. It had quickly been determined that the three scripts said the same thing, if not word for word, so being able to read one inscription (the ancient Greek) would be a starting point for another (the hieroglyphics). The hieroglyphic inscription, however, was incomplete due to damage to the top of the stone, so scholars began by studying the second script (demotic). Young, blessed with an almost photographic memory, managed to discern patterns and resemblances that had escaped others, namely that the second script was closely connected with hieroglyphics, even derived from them, and that it was composed of a combination of both symbolic and phonetic signs.

Young was the first to make these ultimately correct evaluations. Also, working on the assumption that the name of a king was enclosed in a ring, or cartouche, in the hieroglyphic inscription, Young could locate every mention of “Ptolemy”, with which he was able to come up with a starting alphabet for hieroglyphics.

In 1818, Young summed up his pioneering knowledge in an article for the Encyclopaedia Britannica simply entitled “Egypt”, but he made the fateful move of publishing his landmark article anonymously. This allowed his great rival eventually to take the glory of decipherment.

Jean-François Champollion and the Rosetta Stone
Jean-François Champollion was 17 years Young’s junior. Born in 1790 in south-western France to a bookseller and his wife, he grew up surrounded by writings and displayed a precocious genius for languages.

It fell to his older brother, the similarly gifted Jacques-Joseph, essentially to raise him and support his learning. They would move to Grenoble and the young Champollion picked up half a dozen languages. Crucially, it turned out, among them was Coptic: an ancient language with an alphabet based on Greek, which he correctly surmised to be a descendant of ancient Egyptian.

An 1831 portrait Of Jean-Francois Champollion
Portrait of Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832), 1831. Found in the Collection of Musée du Louvre, Paris. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
In 1804, Champollion first came across a copy of the Rosetta Stone inscription, and was fascinated. By the time the mayor of Grenoble is reported to have asked him, in 1806, if he intended to study the fashionable natural sciences, “No, Monsieur,” was the firm reply. “I wish to devote my life to knowledge of ancient Egypt.”

Following a few years studying in Paris, Champollion, still only 19 years old, moved back to Grenoble to take up a teaching post at the local college, gaining a promotion in 1818. This brought a measure of security that allowed him to devote more time to the study of ancient Egypt. That same year in England, Young was penning his seminal article for the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Then, just three years later, Champollion’s revolutionary politics cost him his good name. Fired from the college and ejected from Grenoble, he lodged with his brother. With nothing else to occupy himself, and the benefit of Jacques-Joseph’s extensive library, he threw himself wholeheartedly and with a single-minded focus into the subject that had occupied his mind for years: deciphering the Egyptian script.

Based on his studies of the Rosetta Stone, Champollion made some progress, but was still unable to crack the code entirely. Then a second major piece of the puzzle arrived in the form of an obelisk discovered at Philae and removed from Egypt by a British collector, William John Bankes, to decorate the grounds of his stately home in Dorset.

Lithographs of the inscription circulated in the early 1820s and, like with the Rosetta Stone, the names of rulers – Ptolemy again and Cleopatra – could be identified in cartouches. Incidentally, the lithograph that went to Young contained an error, hampering his research, while the copy that came into Champollion’s possession in January 1822 was accurate.

Certain he was making rapid progress, the Frenchman assigned phonetic values to individual hieroglyphic signs and built an alphabet of his own, which let him find the names of other rulers of Egypt on other monuments.

The final breakthrough came on Saturday 14 September 1822 after Champollion received another inscription, from the pharaonic temple at Abu Simbel. Applying all the knowledge he had laboured so long and so hard to acquire, he was able to read the royal name as that of Ramesses the Great. Encouraged, he went on to read Ptolemy’s royal epithets on the Rosetta Stone. By the end of the morning, he needed no further proof that his system was the right one.

Hieroglyphic carvings at Abu Simbel, site of two temples built by Ramesses the Great
Hieroglyphic carvings at Abu Simbel, site of two temples built by Ramesses the Great in the 13th century BC. As the script could be written in any direction, the way the human and animal figures face shows how to read an inscription (Photo by Getty Images)
He sprinted down the road to his brother’s office at the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, flinging a sheaf of papers on to the desk and exclaiming: “Je tiens mon affaire!” (“I’ve done it!”)

Overcome with emotion and exhausted by the mental effort, Champollion collapsed to the floor and had to be taken back home, where for five days he was confined to his room completely incapacitated. When he finally regained his strength, on the Thursday evening, he immediately resumed his feverish studies and wrote up his results. Just one week later, on Friday 27 September, he delivered a lecture to the Académie to announce his findings formally. By convention, his paper had to be addressed to the permanent secretary, so was given the title Lettre à M. Dacier (“Letter to Mr Dacier”).

The rivalry of Young and Champollion
By extraordinary coincidence, in attendance at that historic talk was Thomas Young, who happened to be in Paris. Moreover, he was invited to sit next to Champollion while he read out his discoveries.

In a letter written two days later, Young acknowledged his rival’s achievement: “Mr Champollion, junior… has lately been making some steps in Egyptian literature, which really appear to be gigantic. It may be said that he found the key in England which has opened the gate for him… but if he did borrow an English key, the lock was so dreadfully rusty, that no common arm would have had strength enough to turn it.”

This outward magnanimity concealed a deeper hurt at the belief Champollion had failed to acknowledge Young’s contributions to decipherment. Quietly determined to set the record straight he published his own work within a few months, this time under his own name. It was pointedly entitled An Account of Some Recent Discoveries in Hieroglyphical Literature and Egyptian Antiquities, Including the Author’s Original Alphabet, as Extended by Mr Champollion.

The Frenchman was not about to take such a claim lightly. In an angry letter to Young, he retorted: “I shall never consent to recognise any other original alphabet than my own… and the unanimous opinion of scholars on this point will be more and more confirmed by the public examination of any other claim.”

Indeed, Champollion was as adept at self-promotion as Young was self-effacing. Buoyed by public recognition, he continued working and came to a second, equally vital realisation: his system could be applied to texts as well as names, using the Coptic he had utterly immersed himself in as a guide. This marked the real moment at which ancient Egyptian once again became a readable language. The race had been won.

Hieroglyphs in the notebook of Jean-Francois Champollion
Pages of Jean-François Champollion’s notebook filled with facsimiles of hieroglyphic inscriptions. The Frenchman dedicated his life to learning the meaning of the symbols that had baffled scholars for centuries (Photo by Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images)
Champollion revealed the full extent of his findings in his magnum opus, Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens Egyptiens (Summary of the hieroglyphic system of the ancient Egyptians). Published in 1824, it summed up the character of ancient Egyptian: “Hieroglyphic writing is a complex system, a script at once figurative, symbolic, and phonetic, in the same text, in the same sentence, and, I might almost say, in the same word.” His reputation secure, he even felt able to acknowledge, grudgingly, Young’s work with the comment, “I recognise that he was the first to publish some correct ideas about the ancient writings of Egypt.”

Young, for his part, seemed to forgive Champollion for any slights, later telling a friend that his rival had “shown me far more attention than I ever showed or could show, to any living being”. Privately, Champollion was far less magnanimous, writing to his brother: “The Brit can do whatever he wants – it will remain ours: and all of old England will learn from young France how to spell hieroglyphs using an entirely different method.”

In the end, despite their radically different characters and temperaments, both made essential contributions to decipherment. Young developed the conceptual framework and recognised the hybrid nature of demotic and its connection with hieroglyphics. Had he stuck at the task and not been distracted by his numerous other scientific interests, he may well have cracked the code himself.

Instead, it took Champollion’s linguistic abilities and focus. His Lettre à M. Dacier announced to the world that the secrets of the hieroglyphics had been discovered and ancient Egyptian texts could be read.

It remains one of the greatest feats of philology. By lifting the civilisation of the pharaohs out of the shadows of mythology and into the light of history, it marked the birth of Egyptology and allowed the ancient Egyptians to speak, once again, in their own voice.

Toby Wilkinson is an Egyptologist and author. His books include A World Beneath the Sands: Adventurers and Archaeologists in the Golden Age of Egyptology (Picador, 2020)

This content first appeared in the October issue of BBC History Magazine

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Looking for ways 🔍 to use the Web effectively for research? 🤔 Want to know how to get the most out of Google? Read this article & learn how to use Google to your advantage!

 

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Tectonic shifts in society and business occur when unexpected events force widespread experimentation around a new idea. During World War II, for instance, when American men went off to war, women proved that they could do “men’s” work — and do it well. Women never looked back after that. Similarly, the Y2K problem demanded the extensive use of Indian software engineers, leading to the tripling of employment-based visas granted by the U.S. Fixing that bug enabled Indian engineers to establish their credentials, and catapulted them as world leaders in addressing technology problems. Alphabet, Microsoft, IBM, and Adobe are all headed by India-born engineers today.
Right now, the Coronavirus pandemic is forcing global experimentation with remote teaching. There are many indicators that this crisis is going to transform many aspects of life. Education could be one of them if remote teaching proves to be a success. But how will we know if it is? As this crisis-driven experiment launches, we should be collecting data and paying attention to the following three questions about higher education’s business model and the accessibility of quality college education.
Do students really need a four-year residential experience?
Answering this question requires an understanding of which parts of the current four-year model can be substituted, which parts can be supplemented, and which parts complemented by digital technologies.
In theory, lectures that require little personalization or human interaction can be recorded as multi-media presentations, to be watched by students at their own pace and place. Such commoditized parts of the curriculum can be easily delivered by a non-university instructor on Coursera, for example; teaching Pythagoras’ theorem is pretty much the same the world over. For such courses, technology platforms can deliver the content to very large audiences at low cost, without sacrificing one of the important benefits of the face-to-face (F2F) classroom, the social experience, because there is hardly any in these basic-level courses.
By freeing resources from courses that can be commoditized, colleges would have more resources to commit to research-based teaching, personalized problem solving, and mentorship. The students would also have more resources at their disposal, too, because they wouldn’t have to reside and devote four full years at campuses. They would take commoditized courses online at their convenience and at much cheaper cost. They can use precious time they spend on campus for electives, group assignments, faculty office hours, interactions, and career guidance, something that cannot be done remotely. In addition, campuses can facilitate social networking, field-based projects, and global learning expeditions — that require F2F engagements. This is a hybrid model of education that has the potential to make college education more affordable for everybody.
But can we shift to a hybrid model? We’re about to find out. It is not just the students who are taking classes remotely, even the instructors are now forced to teach those classes from their homes. The same students and instructors that met until a few weeks back for the same courses, are now trying alternative methods. So, both parties can compare their F2F and remote experiences, all else held equal.
With the current experiment, students, professors, and university administrators must keep a record of which classes are benefiting from being taught remotely and which ones are not going so well. They must maintain chat rooms that facilitate anonymized discussions about the technology issues, course design, course delivery, and evaluation methods. These data points can inform future decisions about when — and why — some classes should be taught remotely, which ones should remain on the campus, and which within-campus classes should be supplemented or complemented by technology.
What improvements are required in IT infrastructure to make it more suitable for online education?
As so many of us whose daily schedules have become a list of virtual meetings can attest, there are hardware and software issues that must be addressed before remote learning can really take off. We have no doubt that digital technologies (mobile, cloud, AI, etc.) can be deployed at scale, yet we also know that much more needs to be done. On the hardware side, bandwidth capacity and digital inequalities need addressing. The F2F setting levels lots of differences, because students in the same class get the same delivery. Online education, however, amplifies the digital divide. Rich students have the latest laptops, better bandwidths, more stable wifi connections, and more sophisticated audio-visual gadgets.
Software for conference calls may be a good start, but it can’t handle some key functionalities such as accommodating large class sizes while also providing a personalized experience. Even in a 1,000-student classroom, an instructor can sense if students are absorbing concepts, and can change the pace of the teaching accordingly. A student can sense whether they are asking too many questions, and are delaying the whole class. Is our technology good enough to accommodate these features virtually? What more needs to be developed? Instructors and students must note and should discuss their pain points, and facilitate and demand technological development in those areas.
In addition, online courses require educational support on the ground: Instructional designers, trainers, and coaches to ensure student learning and course completion. Digital divide also exists among universities, which will become apparent in the current experiment. Top private universities have better IT infrastructure and higher IT support staff ratio for each faculty compared to budget-starved public universities.
What training efforts are required for faculty and students to facilitate changes in mindsets and behaviors?
Not all faculty members are comfortable with virtual classrooms and there is a digital divide among those who have never used even the basic audio-visual equipment, relying on blackboards and flipcharts, and younger faculty who are aware of and adept in newer technology. As students across the nation enter online classrooms in the coming weeks, they’re going to learn that many instructors are not trained to design multimedia presentations, with elaborate notations and graphics. Colleges and universities need to use this moment to assess what training is needed to provide a smooth experience.
Students also face a number of issues with online courses. Committing to follow the university calendar forces them to finish a course, instead of procrastinating it forever. And online they can feel as they don’t belong to a peer group or a college cohort, which in real life instils a sense of competition, motivating all to excel. Anything done online suffers from attention span, because students multi-task, check emails, chat with friends, and surf the Web while attending online lectures. We’re parents and professors; we know this is true.
Can these mindsets change? Right now we are (necessarily, due to social distancing) running trial and error experiments to find out. Both teachers and students are readjusting and recalibrating in the middle of teaching semesters. The syllabus and course contents are being revised as the courses are being taught. Assessment methods, such as exams and quizzes are being converted to online submissions. University administrators and student bodies are being accommodative and are letting instructors innovate their own best course, given such short notice. Instructors, students, and university administrators should all be discussing how the teaching and learning changes between day 1 of virtual education and day X. This will provide clues for how to train future virtual educators and learners.
A Vast Experiment
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has forced a global experiment that could highlight the differences between, and cost-benefit trade off of, the suite of services offered by a residential university and the ultra low-cost education of an online education provider like Coursera. Some years ago, experts had predicted that massive open online courses (MOOCs), such as Khan Academy, Coursera, Udacity, and edX, would kill F2F college education — just as digital technologies killed off the jobs of telephone operators and travel agents. Until now, however, F2F college education has stood the test of time.
The current experiment might show that four-year F2F college education can no longer rest on its laurels. A variety of factors — most notably the continuously increasing cost of tuition, already out of reach for most families, implies that the post-secondary education market is ripe for disruption. The coronavirus crisis may just be that disruption. How we experiment, test, record, and understand our responses to it now will determine whether and how online education develops as an opportunity for the future. This experiment will also enrich political discourse in the U.S. Some politicians have promised free college education; what if this experiment proves that a college education doesn’t have to bankrupt a person?
After the crisis subsides, is it best for all students to return to the classroom, and continue the status quo? Or will we have found a better alternative?

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Case studies are the research method where all the facts and concepts related to the topic being studied and also functional concepts behind the scene are explained. Thus, to write a good case study, a learner must have a thorough knowledge of concepts related to topics. Also, the learner must have essential skills in writing and comprehending the facts well. There is no sure short recipe for writing a perfect case study, but your efforts can make your case study perfect and help you achieve the grades you desire to. Case studies are an important method to understand a concept but while composing a case study, students may come across many difficulties and issues for which they may require Case Study Assignment Help with these case studies based works. Tips Of Writing Case Study  Read the Theoretical Concepts: The case studies are designed to test the academic knowledge of students and how they see relevance and application in their given studies. So that you can easily learn the theories related to a particular discipline or domain on which your case-study assignment is based.  For example, if a case study is based on strategic management, it would be really useful to understand what is strategic management, what are the different perspectives of strategic management. You should have a good understanding of the theoretical concepts that a particular case based study assignment. Read the Case Study Thoroughly: It is essential to read the case thoroughly and understand the different aspects of a case. Understand the chronology of the events of the case study and what are the important points that surface up in the case are vital. Critical Analysis and Coherent Framework: While doing case-studies assignments, it is important to critically analyze the different aspects of an argument and provide necessary evidence in support of the points that you would be making in your report. Most of the students take online help with the case study to compose perfect case-study assignment answers should be given using a coherent and structured framework. Standard Referencing: While addressing all the references in the case-study document it must be in proper format as prescribed by your university. Most of the universities prefer Harvard or APA style referencing styles. Students often are unfamiliar with the referencing styles for which they take the assistance of a case study assignment helper in Australia. Proper citation and referencing will help your reader to identify and reach the sources that you have used for your writer up and arguments. Standard Academic Writing Style: The use of language should be in standard academic writing style with short sentences free of grammatical and spelling errors. Usually, you are expected to write in passive form highlighting what was done objectively.However, make sure to proofread the document to maintain the consistency of the main argument and thesis statements. This is necessary before the final submission of complete case study writing. Don't’ forget to check whether ideas and statements flow and correlate with each other.  In case you require any assignment help then you ask from case-study professionals. 

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Learn how this AI-powered chatbot works, who's behind the technology, and what it can – and can't – do for search marketers.

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Voice-recognition AI software has the potential to be the rare smartphone app that encourages face-to-face interactions. Its early results suggest the technology could be a game-changer for a healthcare industry in desperate need of one, boosting morale in the short-term while potentially saving money down the road.

Voice-recognition AI software has the potential to be the rare smartphone app that encourages face-to-face interactions. Its early results suggest the technology could be a game-changer for a healthcare industry in desperate need of one, boosting morale in the short-term while potentially saving money down the road.

By PETER Y. HAHN

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Several studies in philosophy, linguistics and neuroscience have tried to define the nature and functions of language. Cybernetics and the mathematical theory of communication have clarified the role and functions of signals, symbols and codes involved in the transmission of information. Linguistics has defined the main characteristics of verbal communication by analyzing the main tasks and levels of language. Paleoanthropology has explored the relationship between cognitive development and the origin of language in Homo sapiens. According to Daniel Dor, language represents the most important technological invention of human beings. Seemingly, the main function of language consists of its ability to allow the sharing of the mind’s imaginative products. Following language’s invention, human beings have developed multiple languages and cultures, which, on the one hand, have favored socialization within communities and, on the other hand, have led to an increase in aggression between different human groups.

by  Franco Fabbro  1,*, Alice Fabbro  2 and Cristiano Crescentini  1     1 Department of Languages and Literatures, Communication, Education, and Society, University of Udine, 33100 Udine, Italy 2 School of Psychology and Education, Free University of Brussels, 1050 Brussel, Belgium * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Languages 2022, 7(4), 303; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7040303 Received: 16 May 2022 / Revised: 25 July 2022 / Accepted: 22 November 2022 / Published: 28 November 2022 (This article belongs to the Special Issue Multilingualism: Consequences for the Brain and Mind) Download Versions Notes

 

Abstract Several studies in philosophy, linguistics and neuroscience have tried to define the nature and functions of language. Cybernetics and the mathematical theory of communication have clarified the role and functions of signals, symbols and codes involved in the transmission of information. Linguistics has defined the main characteristics of verbal communication by analyzing the main tasks and levels of language. Paleoanthropology has explored the relationship between cognitive development and the origin of language in Homo sapiens. According to Daniel Dor, language represents the most important technological invention of human beings. Seemingly, the main function of language consists of its ability to allow the sharing of the mind’s imaginative products. Following language’s invention, human beings have developed multiple languages and cultures, which, on the one hand, have favored socialization within communities and, on the other hand, have led to an increase in aggression between different human groups. Keywords:  communication; symbols; neural recycling; cultural identities  

 

1. Introduction For over two thousand years philosophers, theologians and poets have reflected on the nature of language (Heidegger 1959; Panikkar 2007). More recently, scientific disciplines, from linguistics to computer science, have also sought to clarify its characteristics and functions (Sapir 1921; Jakobson and Waugh 1979; Borden et al. 2006). Nevertheless, in spite of thousands of books and articles, both theoretical and experimental, the nature of language still remains rather enigmatic (Lieberman 2013; Scott-Phillips 2015; Corballis 2017a, 2017b). In the Encyclopedia Britannica, language is defined as a symbolic system (composed of sounds, hand gestures or letters) created by a social group to facilitate human expression. According to this perspective, the functions of language include communication, cultural identity, play and imaginative and emotional expression (Britannica n.d.). The Italian encyclopedia Treccani also specifies that language is an exclusive faculty of human beings allowing for the expression of consciousness’ contents through a conventional symbolic system (Treccani n.d.). These definitions, albeit general, highlight characteristic aspects of language: its communicative function, its symbolic nature and its ability to express and share consciousness’ contents. 2. Language as a Communication System Communication is a particular form of transport in which what is moved is neither matter nor energy but “information” (Escarpit 1976). Yet, information cannot exist without a material substrate, though it is not reducible to it (Longo 1998). For example, sending a telegram to New York saying “all right” would require the same amount of energy and matter as sending “gar lilth” instead. Both telegrams are composed of two words and the same eight letters arranged in a different order. Transmitting either message would require an equal amount of energy and matter; although, only the first would convey understandable information. Thus, information is to be regarded as something altogether different from its material supports (Wiener 1948). Every communication system, be it verbal expression, telephone lines, radio channels or the internet, consists of at least three elements: an emitter (source or transmitter), a receiver and the channel carrying information from the emitter to the receiver. The information source (emitter) selects the “message” and encodes it in a “code” that is a set of “signs” or “symbols” which are represented by “signals” compatible and specific to the channel in use (Pierce 1961; Singh 1966). For example, the channel of a telegraph can only transmit electric current impulses of two possible durations: a short impulse (dot) and a long impulse (line). Accordingly, all letters of the alphabet have to be codified as a series of symbols made up of sets of lines and dots before being transmitted (Singh 1999). To date, information’s nature remains rather elusive (Dodig-Crnkovic and Burgin 2019). Information plays an essential role in the functioning of living systems (cells, organisms and societies) and in the regulation of some man-made devices, in particular, in self-regulating systems such as thermostats and electronic processors. Norbert Weiner, in one of the earliest definitions of information, describes it as being neither matter nor energy (Wiener 1948, p. 132; Montagnini 2015). According to Gregory Bateson (1972), information has to do with the notion of “difference”: for example, maps are representations of territorial differences (roads, hills, mountains, cities). If all land was alike and presented no discernible features, there would be no information. Giuseppe Longo has thus proposed to define information as a “difference that generates a difference to somebody” (Longo 1998; Longo and Vaccaro 2013). Such definition necessarily implies the existence of an observer (man or machine) able to detect and/or produce differences. Transferring information through a channel while limiting the interference of “noise”, which tends to distort and shatter messages, is considered a crucial aspect of communication by mathematicians and engineers alike. In the monograph entitled The Mathematical Theory of Communication (1949), Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver maintain that the fundamental engineering problem of communication is to reproduce in one point (A), in an exact, or more or less approximate way, a message originating in another point (B) (Shannon and Weaver 1949). Such two points can be separated in “space” or “time”. In this sense, communication then not only concerns the spatial transfer of information, but also its storage on physical supports. Shannon was concerned with the technical aspects of communication, and in order to make mathematical observations, he isolated information from its semantic contents (Longo 1998, p. 28; Longo and Vaccaro 2013, pp. 22–23). In such a manner it was possible to relate it to the concepts of uncertainty and entropy. The level of information depends on the number of possible messages: if only one message is possible, there is no uncertainty and therefore no information. Moreover, information is related to probability, therefore, to a certain element of surprise. The smaller a message’s likelihood, the more informative it is. By elaborating on these concepts, Shannon established an equation to quantify the amount of information contained in a message, regardless of its meaning. This quantity was related to the average logarithm of the improbability of the message. It was basically a measure of its unpredictability (Gleick 2011). Establishing that information was not a concept of the physical discipline, and could not be related to either matter or energy, called for the invention of a new unit of measurement in order to define it. Shannon had the brilliant intuition to think of information as something allowing to answer a question with either a “yes” or a “no”. The answer of such question can take one of two possible values: “1” (yes) or “0” (no). Thus, each question corresponds to a Binary Digit or a bit. For example, it is possible to precisely define a number between one and one hundred by asking a series of questions that can be answered with “yes” or “no”. “Is the number greater than 50?” (Yes). “Is the number lesser than 75?” (No), and so on. According to this perspective, any question with a possible answer can be codified in sequences of “1” and “0” and can thus be measured in bits. Since language is a set of symbols (phonemes or letters of the alphabet), it too can be rendered in a series of bits. For example, as each letter of the English alphabet can be coded in five bits, an average book of about four hundred letters approximately contains two million bits of information. Conceptualizing language as a communication system (Code Model) is a major model of linguistic analysis. However, as language is not only a system for the transmission of information but performs other functions, it can be examined through other analytical frameworks (Scott-Phillips 2015). 3. Signs, Symbols and Codes Information sources emit message units. These units are exchanged by means of a code (such as the genetic code, the alphabetic code, the Morse code, etc.) between the emitter (encoder) and the receiver (decoder) (de Saussure 1922). The code is a list of units, called symbols, that constitute the message. Symbols are signs in which the relationship between what is being represented and its representation is arbitrary (Mazzone 2005; Deacon 1997). The word sign derives from the Latin “signum” and describes “something referring to something else” (Peirce 1931–1935), as claimed medieval philosophers: alquid stat pro aliquo (Bettetini 1963; Mazzone 2005). The word symbol derives from the Greek symbolon (σύμβολον) which means: “to cast together”, “to connect”, “make coincide”. The symbol for the Greeks originally designated an object, a tile, a fragment of ceramic or metal that was divided in the stipulation of an economic, emotional or spiritual contract. Each party kept a piece in token of their agreement. Upon meeting, the fragments of the symbolon were brought together to honor the bond and commemorate the economic, emotional or spiritual ties uniting them (Mazzone 2005). Aristotle emphasized above all the conventional and relational aspect of language’s symbols (words) (De Interpretatione, (Aristotle 1962)). Symbols are entities in relation with one another, and for this reason the meaning of a word opposes and differs from the words surrounding it. Each symbol of language has two faces: the signifier and the signified. The mathematical theory of communication has been interested above all in the signifier and its characteristics: encoding and decoding, resistance to noise, speed of transmission. To return to our earlier example, sending a message via telegraph requires that the letters of the alphabet be encoded in the symbols of the Morse code. The individual letters transformed into Morse symbols are then sent through a series of short (dot) and long (line) pulses, minimizing the effects of noise along the telegraph line. Other areas of general communication theory, such as semantics and pragmatics, are more interested in aspects related to meaning and the communicative context (Longo 2001). A fundamental aspect, which is often forgotten, is that at the origin and at the end of most of the experiences of coding or decoding a message, we always find “language”. It is a very particular form of communication that presupposes thinking and speaking individuals, who have tacitly agreed upon an interpretative code among themselves through an action of social coordination (Singh 1966; Escarpit 1976; Mazzone 2005). In a series of reflections developed in the biophysical context, Howard Pattee analyzed the most significant characteristics present in cultural (such as language) and biological (such as the genetic code) symbolic systems (Pattee 2008, 2015; Pattee and Kull 2009; Pattee and Rączaszek-Leonardi 2012). According to Pattee, “symbols” are “formal entities that stand for something else” (representing something else). The first defining characteristic of symbols is that they are constituted by physical structures. In fact, all codes, rules and even the most abstract descriptions related to the symbolic dimension have well-defined physical bases. For example, DNA is formed by nucleotides, phonemes are made up of sound signals and even the letters of the alphabet consist of signs drawn on paper. The second characteristic concerns the aspect of reproducibility. The symbolic structures can be transmitted through their replication, which is articulated first in a process of “reading” and then in a process of “copying”. The third characteristic refers to arbitrariness. All the symbolic structures, aside from being informative (highly improbable), present a complete arbitrariness between the “signifier” (phonemes, letters, nucleotides) and the “signified”. The arbitrary relationship between symbols and their meaning depends on the history of that particular symbolic system (the history of languages or the history of the genetic code). Indeed, at the lowest level of organization, no symbol carries any meaning (i.e., no phoneme or no nucleotide refers to anything significant). The effects of the symbols are highlighted within a dynamic system capable of generating more or less complex structures. Symbolic systems are historically determined and represent “memories of possibility”; they are coordinated adaptations with biological, psychological or social reality. 4. The Symbolic Nature of Language Compared to DNA and psyche, language is the symbolic domain that is most “external” (Fabbro 2021a, 2021b). It is a symbolic system constituted by several layers. At the most superficial level, sounds are symbols for phonemes. In turn, sequences of phonemes are symbols for words, while strings of words form symbols for sentences and, finally, ordered chains of sentences constitute symbols for narratives and stories. All languages are made up of symbolic systems nested within one another and sharing some universal properties (Hockett 1960). The first is the duality of structure: all human languages use meaningless signs (phonemes), which combine into ordered sequences of sounds with meaning (words). The second characteristic refers to arbitrariness, which is one of the fundamental concepts of all symbolic systems. In language, this concept indicates that there is no physical similarity between a symbol (word) and the object that it represents. Within a linguistic community, phonemes, words and numerous grammatical aspects are passed on from one generation to the next (transmission) through usage and learning (de Saussure 1922; Thorpe 1972). Like DNA, languages have a linear code. This implies that every verbal expression is made up at the most superficial level of a string of words that, at the deepest level, presents a hidden structure (syntax). Linearity manifests a fundamental aspect of spoken languages, namely the temporal arrangement of acoustic signals along a timeline (de Saussure 1922). An additional property of languages, which is also shared by DNA, is discreteness. The sound symbols of a language (phonemes) are represented by a discrete number of elements (in Italian = 30; in English = 44). The same can be said of words; there are no intermediate sentences between a sentence composed of “n” words and a sentence composed of “n + 1” words (Moro 2006). Another important feature is recursiveness, which is the ability to infinitely repeat a process within the same structure. Since a sentence can consist of a nominal syntagm (SN) plus a verbal syntagm (VS) [S = NS + SV], and the verbal syntagm can consist of a verb plus a nominal syntagm or a verb plus another sentence [VS = V + NS or VS = V + S], it is possible to recursively expand a sentence by inserting another sentence at the level of the verbal syntagm. For example, “Marco is wearing a sweater” + “The sweater cost 100 euros” = “Marco is wearing a sweater that cost 100 euros”. Recursiveness accounts for another property of languages: openness, that is, the possibility of producing sentences that are always new or have never been uttered before. As a result of recursiveness and openness, every speaker can generate an almost infinite number of sentences. The rules that determine the organization of words within a sentence are called ‘syntax’. Each language has specific syntactic rules. For some, such as Latin, word order has only rhetorical significance. In fact, in Latin there is little difference between the sentences: “hominem videt femina” or “femina videt hominem”, while in English the order of the words is very important: the sentence “the child eats the chicken” means something very different from the sentence “the chicken eats the child” (Sapir 1921). Within human languages, there is an enormous variety of phonemes, words and grammatical rules. Nevertheless, there exist some restraints in their choice and implementation. The repertoire of phonemes that humans can produce is limited. The phonoarticulatory organs and the nerve structures that coordinate them have structural and physiological constraints. Likewise, it is not possible to pronounce words that are too long (e.g., composed of 500 phonemes) because at a certain point the air emitted during exhalation runs out. Based on these premises, many linguists, starting from Noam Chomsky, have argued that there are limits also in the possible syntactic rules. Therefore, the set of syntactic rules of all languages would be delimited by a system of categories, mechanisms and constraints called “universal grammar”. Universal grammar seems to be related to the ways in which the brain develops, organizes and functions, which in turn are related to specific genetic information that has probably evolved over hundreds of thousands of years within a context of a musical nature (glossolalic singing) (Mithen 2005; Patel 2008; Fabbro 2018). 5. The Invention of Language Humans belong to the class of Mammals and the order of Primates, which emerged about 80 million years ago and comprises about 400 species, including prosimians (tarsiers and lemurs), monkeys and anthropomorphic apes. The Hominid family, which includes our species, separated from the latter about 5–7 million years ago. The most significant characteristic that distinguishes hominids from other primates is the bipedal gait (Manzi 2017). Adapting to bipedal locomotion brought about a series of anatomical modifications, concerning the conformation of the lower limbs and feet, and important physiological transformations at the level of the respiratory system and central nervous system. The bipedal gait modified the respiratory rhythm allowing for an extended expiratory phase, a fundamental requirement to develop the ability to laugh, sing and speak (Provine 2000). Homo sapiens, the only extant species of hominids, appeared in Africa about 300,000 years ago. Fossil remains attributed to H. sapiens have been found in Ethiopia (dated 195,000 years ago) and Morocco (dated about 300,000 years ago). The modern human presents a more gracile and slender structure than the Neanderthal man, with a brain volume of about 1400 cubic centimeters in H. sapiens and about 1600 cc in H. neanderthalensis. Paleoanthropologists believe that modern humans seem to have come from an eastern or southeastern region of Africa and then spread across the continent. They subsequently migrated, in several waves, to Eurasia and the rest of the world (Tattersall 2012). For a long period of time, more than 200,000 years, H. sapiens did not produce any technological innovations: its lifestyle and style in manufacturing lithic tools was similar to that of other extant hominid species (H. erectus, H. heildebergensis, H. neanderthalensis, Denisova man). The only significant distinction consisted in a different organizational structure of human villages. In fact, modern humans present, in all hunter-gatherer cultures studied, a more numerous social structure than that of the other hominids. About 80–90 thousand years ago, H. sapiens began to manifest great creativity by producing ornaments, decorations and complex tools that involved the development of symbolic thinking. This was unprecedented. Numerous anthropologists, psychologists and linguists have wondered about the causes behind this qualitative leap in culture and technology. Some have concluded that what brought about this cognitive revolution was most probably the appearance of articulated language (Tattersall 2012; Lieberman 2013; Corballis 2015; Chomsky 2016). Not much seems to have changed at the genetic, anatomical and physiological levels in H. sapiens since its appearance 80,000 years ago. For this reason, some neuroscientists and paleoanthropologists, including Israel Rosenfield and Ian Tattersall, have argued that a group of H. sapiens located in a southeastern region of Africa probably “invented” articulate language (Rosenfield 1992; Tattersall 2012; Fabbro 2018). Evidently this was not a “conscious invention”, but rather a kind of social game probably developed by a sufficiently large group of children who lived together for a few generations. The hypothesis that articulate language was invented and did not evolve, as many biologists, linguists and psychologists have long argued (Pinker 1994; Dunbar 2014; Corballis 2002, 2017a), is supported by the recent discovery that at least two languages emerged from nowhere in a group of children in Nicaragua and in a community of Bedouins in the Negev desert (Senghas et al. 2004; Senghas 2005). Nicaraguan sign language is the first language invented by a group of children to have been thoroughly studied (Tattersall 2012; Bausani 1974; Fabbro 1996). Towards the end of the 1970s, after the victory of the Sandinista revolution, a special school dedicated to the education of deaf and mute children was established in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. Initially, 50 children were brought together, joined by more than 200 in 1981, a number that gradually grew in the years that followed. The school aimed to teach deaf–mute children to lip-read the Spanish language, a goal that was not achieved. Instead, just within the span of two generations, the children spontaneously invented Nicaraguan Sign Language. The first generation shared a set of signs that they had developed in the domestic context of their families (homesigns). These signs did not represent an actual sign language yet, but rather a form of gestural communication. In contrast, the second generation of deaf children, younger in age, was able to develop a grammatically complete language on the basis of the signs shared by children of the previous generation. The younger children were able to categorize the gestures of the older students, generating a true grammar, i.e., a set of abstract categories capable of regulating the relationships between different symbolic units. Only younger children were able to transform “gestures” into “symbols”. This confirms the hypothesis that a language can only be “acquired” in a complete form or “invented” by children who have not yet reached puberty (Senghas et al. 2004; Fabbro 2004). The invention of articulated verbal communication (language) by (deaf–mute) children indicates that language has not evolved but has been invented (Rosenfield 1992). This means that some biological bases of language (concerning phonology and syntax) have evolved within vocal behaviors that are much more archaic than language, such as glossolalic singing. Spoken language is the most important technology serving the transmission of mental content. Other systems used for the transmission of mental contents are written language and mathematics. Overall, these all are technical and cognitive skills that, on the basis of pre-adaptation (exaptation) phenomena, have conquered brain territories that originally evolved to compensate for other functions (Dehaene and Cohen 2007; Dehaene 1997, 2009; Fabbro 2018, 2021a). 6. What Is Language’s Purpose? According to many authors, language is a form of communication (Miller 1975, 1987). However, it is possible to communicate effectively even without language: many animal species communicate very well even without speech. Recently, Daniel Dor argued that language is a technology aimed at sharing imagination (Dor 2014, 2015, 2016). According to this perspective, the task of the speaker is to provide clues about their own mental representations, while the addressee tries to reconstruct the mental representations of the speaker through a chain of interpretative processes (Scott-Phillips 2015). In fact, for every “literal meaning” of a word or a sentence, there are infinite possible modulations of meaning (also related to pragmatic aspects). This fact determines one of the most typical characteristics of language, namely the “pervasiveness of indeterminacy” (Scott-Phillips 2015). This is a limitation given that verbal expression does not allow a direct (literal) grasp of reality; at the same time, it allows a varied range of interpretative possibilities. Like all technologies, language is a system for achieving a purpose, namely the construction of a network of psychic individualities that exchange the contents of their imaginations. It is an unconventional type of technology, similar to money, contracts and legal systems. Since human beings are social organisms, language’s invention and its development were accomplished as collective processes. Individual minds can be viewed as the “nodes” of a metaphorical Web, in which language constitutes the software that each human being downloads into their own mind and uses to help achieve an imaginative community (Barabási 2002; Dor 2015). Wilhelm von Humboldt (1836) was one of the first linguists to emphasize the central role that imagination plays within language. In his opinion, human languages are not tools for naming objects that have already been thought, but rather organs used for the formulation of thought. Similarly, Daniel Dor considers language as the “mother of all inventions” (Dor 2015). According to this perspective, it was the invention of language that really gave rise to human beings. Thus, the first and most important technological product of human beings is language. At the same time, language has changed us radically. The unintentional invention of language has occurred repeatedly throughout human history (Fabbro 2018). Deaf and mute children in Nicaragua who spontaneously invented a new sign language were able to experience the passage of the “magical frontier of language” and compare it to their previous lives. The experience was described as inconceivable, disconcerting and astounding; what struck these children most was the realization of the abysmal loneliness of their lives prior to entering the sphere of language (Schaller 1991; Senghas et al. 2004). The relationships between language and technology are much closer than is commonly assumed. One aspect shared by both language and technology is recursiveness. In fact, all technological tools are constituted by components that are assembled according to a hierarchical structure. Technologies are comprised of technological components that contain smaller components within them, made up of even more elementary components (such as screws, vanes, bolts, etc.). Thus, modern technology is similar to a language that is open to the creation of new structures and functions (Arthur 2009). For these reasons, we believe that it is not a coincidence that the cultural and technological explosion that followed the cognitive revolution, some 80,000 years ago, is related to the most important invention made by humankind, namely the invention of language. Finally, some interesting evolutionary psychology studies, developed by Robin Dunbar (1996, 2014), have analyzed the possible role that vocal communication and language play in strengthening social bonds and reducing stress. 7. Languages as the Bedrock of Cultural Identities It is likely that the first language split into several others just under a few hundred years after its invention. In fact, language can arise only from other human languages. The emergence of dialects is favored by a combination of geographic isolation and of linguistic variation (at phonological, syntactical and lexical levels) naturally occurring within generations (von Humboldt 1836; Locke and Bogin 2006). Languages facilitate relationships within the members of a group, yet they also contribute to the segregation of communities (Fabbro 1999; Pagel and Mace 2004; Pagel 2009). There is evidence suggesting that languages may act as biological barriers genetically isolating populations; indeed, the tendency to prefer partners speaking the same language still prevails among human beings (Spielman et al. 1974; Cavalli-Sforza 1996; Fabbro 1996, 1999; Lieberman 2013). The acquisition of language, both in written and spoken form, sculpts the brain in specific ways and is affected by the existence of critical periods (or sensitive periods) (Fabbro 2004). Generally, it is possible to learn a second language well only before puberty and preferably before the age of seven. After the brain structures of the implicit memory system (particularly procedural memory) involved in the acquisition of language and syntax have matured, it is generally not possible to completely acquire a second language at the first language level (Paradis 1994, 2009; Cargnelutti et al. 2019). These observations suggest that the true “territory” of a language is not geographical, but rather neurological and mental (Fabbro 2018). Moreover, perfect language acquisition is only possible within early childhood. The use of vocal signals, learned within specific critical periods, is a rather widespread biological phenomenon: it is present in many species of passerines (canaries, finches, etc.) and in some mammals, such as dolphins and killer whales (Riesch et al. 2012). In killer whales, the development of pod-specific cultural habits (related to singing and feeding) has mediated their speciation into numerous subspecies (Riesch 2016). Cultural and genetic isolation is one of the mechanisms for producing biological diversity, and diversity is the ground on which life originates and develops. Language’s advent determined the emergence of human cultures. Human beings within each culture have developed more or less different narratives, customs and traditions. The different tribes and populations of H. sapiens were rather technologically and traditionally homogenous before the invention of language. Its invention generated considerable diversity in ornaments, decorations and tattoos among different language groups. However, it is likely that linguistic and cultural diversity in hunter-gatherer societies also fostered an increase in violence (Fabbro et al. 2022). Violence is a behavior of destructive and systematic aggression, aimed primarily at the elimination of isolated individuals or groups of the same species. In the second half of the last century, some ethologists have documented the presence of destructive behaviors between different groups of chimpanzees (Wrangham and Peterson 1996; Wrangham et al. 2006; Kelly 2005). These behaviors did not seem to be driven by food scarcity, but rather competition to access larger territories and greater food and sexual resources. In humans, language differences appear to have fueled the tendency for inter-group violence, as in almost all past human cultures those who spoke foreign languages were considered “subhuman beings” liable be subjugated or killed. In fact, one of the most characteristic abilities of human beings, even of those who have not studied phonetics or phonology, consists of the ability to recognize from the pronunciation whether an individual belongs to their linguistic community or not. This ability, which seems to develop more during adolescence, is independent of the communication of information. According to this perspective, language plays a significant role as a marker of group identities (Locke and Bogin 2006; Ritt 2017). These aspects of human socialization and communication indicate that language, like many other aspects of cognition, has both strengths and limitations, which must be properly understood and regulated (Fabbro 2021a, 2021b; Fabbro et al. 2022). Author Contributions Conceptualization, F.F. and C.C.; writing—original draft preparation, F.F.; writing—review and editing, F.F., A.F. and C.C.; supervision, F.F. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. 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Via Charles Tiayon

Via Charles Tiayon

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Via Tom D'Amico (@TDOttawa)

The concept of hyflex classes gained popularity as pandemic lockdowns started to ease. More people wanted to go out in public, while others felt it was too soon. Like many other organizations, schools had to figure out how to provide a balanced solution.

Though not created during the pandemic, many institutions adopted the hyflex model in the last couple of years. Now, the question is if this method will continue even if we put COVID-19 behind us.

Via EDTECH@UTRGV